Would you like to be a ShoeMoney Contributing Writer?

Answers to questions round 8

1) I spend half my life looking through analytics reports. How do you gather stats? Do you have any automation techinuqes for pulling reports from GA, since they don’t have an API?

2) What movies get you pumped for work? just finished Wall St, Boiler Room and Glengerry Glen Ross… wondered if I’d missed anything…

3) Same for books.. I know you did a post on this a while back, but I wondered if you’d read (or heard) anything good lately?

ShoeMoney: We have our own inhouse tools. GA is a good start but you need to make a custom solution tailored to what you really care about and then have it delivered to you automatically. Your other 2 questions – just search for them already been posts made.

you mentioned in a recent post that you’ve run the same offer through different networks with very different results. i’ve had this happen to me as well. same offer, same keywords, same search engine – 40%+ difference in conversion rates. do you think this is due to a crappy pixel or is it deliberate? it’s interesting that the network with the highest payout for an offer is usually the one with the lowest conversion rate….

ShoeMoney: As I said in the post mostly due to crappy tracking, isp black lists, anti-spyware programs.

Do you prefer to buy websites with traffic & revenue or almost dead websites for domain & Search Engine authority?

ShoeMoney: I would much rather buy a site that is completely nowhere to be found on google but has revenue and great word of mouth traffic vs a site that has great search engine authority but makes no revenue.

ShoeMoney: I did… his walkthrough about how how we made $10,000.00 a day while sitting on the beach was just too much had to cut him off. Errr no.

Luke asks:

I have Adsense on my sites and it does well – but still only pays pennies a click. But cause of my big traffic numbers it adds up and i do nicely. I cant seem to get anything else to pay higher though.

What would you test instead of adsense, if you were me? What ad networks do you recommend? I heard you say some sites charge $15/cpm for banner ads – id be happy with $10/cpm?

ShoeMoney: I used entrecard for a while. I just did not have time to keep up with approving sites and all that stuff. I think its a great thing for people looking to expose themselves. Hmm apps for the mac? I really like skitch. I use terminal, mail.app or firefox 90% of the time

Right now, what is your biggest income from the web and what type of work are you doing to promote this?

ShoeMoney: Currently its not something I want to disclose but I will post about it later this year.

Pyjammez asks:

When starting a new website idea, what are the important steps to take, starting from the initial idea and all the way to the official launch of the website.

The answer I’m seeking would be similar to something like:
1. think of the idea 2.define the purpose of the site 3. write a list of all the features 4. determine target audience 5. draw a draft layout 6. think of marketing ideas 7. who will design it (if not yourself) 8. where to host 9. write 30 days worth of content to make sure you don’t run out…. ETC ETC.

So in other words, is there a general system you use or know is the best for constructing a website from start to finish?

On your last Shoemoney show you were talking about subscriptions and you mentioned something about a book. I’m in the process of creating a site that deals with subscriptions and I would like to know; what book(s) do you recommend to learn more about subscriptions?

In terms of making money by blogging, what do you think the greatest source of income is? AdSense, Amazon, Yahoo, Banner ads or indirect sources such as speaking engagements and consulting fees?

ShoeMoney: Indirect sources. This blog makes decent money but the opportunities that have opened up because of it are worth a 1000 times more.

Alex asks:

How large is Shoemoney.com? Your Advertise page says 20,000 unqiues a day, but your stats from last year say 4000 per day http://www.shoemoney.com/2007/12/30/2007-blog-statistics/

ShoeMoney: GA last year was just on certain parts of shoemoney.com (just in index.php I think) so none of the gallery/forums/single article/marketplace/serps hits were recorded. The pages the banners are on get between 20-25k uniques a day.

yea because um.. i own a blog/forum for webmasters at http://millionwebmasters.com i am thinking of referring users to affiliate programs.. so i earn their percentage.. do you think that will make more then affiliate marketing?

ShoeMoney: No to be honest. The big secret about affiliate networks is that only a small few make the majority of their income. You can either spend all your time hoping 1 newbie affiliate signs up through you and you make 2% of what they make OR you can try to do something yourself.

“There are an extraordinary amount of opportunities to make 100$ per day. I mean I can think of probably 50 off the top of my head.” – (http://www.shoemoney.com/2008/05/16/as-success-grows-opportunities-shrink/)

How would you mind sharing these ideas on your blog since you won’t be using them? 😉

ShoeMoney: already answered like 20 times

D Wills asks:

Are there really 1932 “current users online” on fighters.com 🙂

ShoeMoney: Actually right now 2319

Jim asks:

Why do you keep posting about how much you hate SEO? Do you keep retrying because you never make a convincing case?

ShoeMoney: Probably because people like you who are confused and think I actually hate SEO when I have never once said that. So many thing skin SEO people are like “OHH LOOK ANOTHER I HATE SEO POST” when they don’t even read it. Just listen to any of my shows when people call in and want to argue with me about SEO but they never dispute 1 thing I say ever in the articles…. As far as convincing.. Since most of the respected SEO’s have agreed with me I think that speaks for itself.”

Remember the silence asks:

As I understand from your previous posts you also had MFA sites (arbitrage). Well, I did and of course I got the letter from AdSense last year and got kicked out of adsense (I wonder if they would allow me back now that one year has passed). My question is, have you ever been banned from AdSense or AdWords? How did you get back in?

ShoeMoney: I have recieved several warnings from Google Adsense but never been banned from AdSense or Adwords (and the warnings were not for arbitrage). I still continue to arbitrage on a smaller scale and have never had any issues.

For a media business (i.e. internet marketing, etc) will any CPA do? Is it important for a CPA to have specific knowledge about your industry? Any specific questions that should be asked when interviewing a CPA for your media/internet company? Any pointers are appreciated.

ShoeMoney: I think its important to get a accountant who has experience with e-commerce. Things like paypal and stuff can be very confusing

Dan asks:

Are there any networks that buy business leads for non-financial products, e.g. someone looking for an accountant, looking for a building contractor etc

ShoeMoney: I am sure there are.

Brent asks:

Do you follow WEC? Faber or Pulver?

ShoeMoney: Faber. This fight is a joke Pulver will get destroyed.

Tim asks:

What are your opinions regarding the pros cons of lead generation CPA offers with fixed payouts vs pay per sale percentage of commission? Which do you favor (do you even favor one over the other??) and why?

Do you have a formula or a system of when to drop a project? I mean, have you ever worked on something you thought was going to be a windfall and it turn out to not even be worth the effort? Most of us are one man shows and we can’t keep dumping good money and time after bad. How do you know when to cut and run?

ShoeMoney: Yes totally. I think when it becomes apparent that its something you can’t be the best at then kill it.

Dustin asks:

What do you feel about the Elite XC mma fight going prime time last night on CBS? Good for the sport or a joke with Kimbo Slice being the headliner?

ShoeMoney: I think its great for the sport. All fighters should be thanking kimbo for helping them get better future paydays.

What do you think is the best (free?) tool for tracking affiliate sales/leads? Do you think a (part-time/small fry) blogger trying to monetize with affiliate links should get into the stats (what pages converted, bounce rate, etc) very heavily, or do you think it is really only PPC people that should worry about it?

ShoeMoney: Google Analytics is the best free one. I think everyone should be interested in their stats.

hoodmonkey asks:

Someone told me they might have saw your pool logo while flying out of LNK.. I will try to get a picture.. but was that a ploy to get a place mark on Google earth?

ShoeMoney: The current Google earth picture of my house is from 7 years ago. I doubt they will update it because I now have a removeable shoemoney logo.

42 Comments

Thanks for answering my subscription question. I did a quick search on amazon and found that Seth Godin published a lot of books(142). Is there a couple of books that stick out in your mind that I should start with?

Hey, Great blog. I know you are planning on releasing http://www.shoemoneyplaybook.com soon, and the website says it is coming out this “spring”. Almost summer… lol. Seriously though, what do you plan to do price wise on the playbook? I am looking forward to digging into it. Keep up the good work.

Late again. Had a question about Kimbo but you basically answered it. Uhmm. I’ve got a question maybe you could hold for later, or whatever. All the seo, googlewatch, searchwatch blogs have been going nuts over local search. Have you looked into it and if you have, are you trying things out on it or would you rather focus on national “larger” web traffic?

June 1, 2008

hoodmonkey

haha next time I will work on a question that doesn’t trigger your bipolar!

What time zone are you running on, Jeremy? Mine is GMT+2, and I keep on missing out on these Q&A sessions of yours, so would like to log on during your time online next Sunday! Cheers everybody, have an awesome week!

I missed some q’s but i will check now. some peoples are using left and right Brain technique in answers of the questions but i like it and i learned lots of things from shoe money’s Q’ and Answers
presently it a challenge to manage GA for new and old sites but but its not tuff we can do easily for web stats reports.

i hear it over and over that passion is a must at what you do, and shoe is absolutely right. It doesn’t matter what it is b/c the more passionate you are about something the more work you’re going to put R&D into it….as a result you are going to go far….it has to. Well, unless you need capital and your short of some funds